Swimming as a bridge to social good

Mind Games

One thing I’m pretty good at is forcing myself to not think negative thoughts when swimming in the ocean. When Carrington waxes on about sharks or Emily flips about huge jellyfish, I usually say: “no, there’s nothing out there…. just us.” Well, this morning I discovered how flimsy my resolve for positive thinking really is. We walked out of the house down towards the beach and I saw it from 50 meters away: a mammoth, gleaming, dead fish. I walked over to it the whole time thinking: “holy crap- that’s the size of the fish out there!?” It was over 2 meters long and well over 100kg- bigger than me. We swam a short 3 K but I was terrified, more than I’ve ever felt before. A couple of times I ducked my head down so I could see if there was a leviathan fish nipping at my feet or if there was an giant eel attacking my neck. Thankfully, there never was (the eel was the wetsuit zipper cord, as Mauricio let me know after he heard my scream)… but I’m going to have to toughen up my thinking.